BCS Bowls | OUAT Sports

The College Bowl Schedule & The Case For Northern Illinois

Dan Flaherty Uncategorized BCS bowl schedule, BCS bowls, college bowl schedule, college bowls, Northern Illinois BCS, Northern Illinois Orange Bowl

This past Saturday night I was in Lucas Oil Stadium for the Big Ten Championship Game with a friend of mine. As Wisconsin’s 70-31 pounding of Nebraska got out of control, we started to look at the BCS rankings on his I-phone to see if there was any chance Northern Illinois could make it to the Orange Bowl.

We identified teams the Huskies they would have to pass in the rankings to achieve automatic qualifying status. The five battleground states, if you will, were identified as Kent, UCLA, Texas, Michigan and Nebraska. NIU had to win four of the five battles. This also assumed the Huskies—21st coming into the week—would nudge past #20 Boise to become the top midmajor on the board. With most of the experts, like CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm and ESPN’s Brad Edwards still saying NIU would come up short, and even non-expert locales like this site feeling this way on Friday, as we examined the data on Saturday night, Northern Illinois’ path suddenly looked open.

BCS Bowl Projections: Does November Chaos Loom?

Dan Flaherty Uncategorized Alabama BCS chances, BCS bowl matchups, BCS bowl projections, BCS bowls, Kansas State BCS chances, notre dame bcs chances, Oregon BCS chances

The month of October is in the books for college football and the crazy season is about to begin. November has a way of throwing a monkey wrench in everyone’s BCS bowl projections. From the strain of a long season to the challenges college kids have with keeping focus as media spin swirls around them to playing high-quality opposition looking to make a name for itself, November almost never goes as planned. Still, TheSportsNotebook is undeterred in making its BCS bowl projections five weeks from the finish line.

Big Ten Football Flails In Mediocrity

Dan Flaherty Uncategorized BCS bowls, Big Ten football, Big Ten football racve, Leaders Division, Legends Division, Wisconsin football, Wisconsin offensive line coach

The Big Ten football race was going to be a little watered down this season to begin with, as the probations of Ohio State and Penn State effectively gutted the Leaders Division in this conference. Little did we know that would be the tip of the iceberg—the results of the first two weeks make it clear the league race in general, and the Leaders Division in particular are diluted enough to make an early call on the Big Ten as the worst of the five power leagues (along with the SEC, Big 12, Pac-12 & ACC) and maybe worse than the Big East. Let’s down a rundown on the damage…